CHAPTER VIII

Anything is worth what it costs; if it be only as a schooling in resolution, energy, and devotedness; regrets are the sole admission of a fruitless business; they show the bad tree.—g. meredith.

THAT day could not dawn too early for Mousie. She lay, after Freedom’s whisper had ceased, staring upon the darkness with wide lids. Her stay among the gipsies had deepened her nature in some measure. Before this the course of her being had been like that of a little burn, full of kinks and babblings, frothing round some obstructing but tiny stone, now conveying a straw as importantly as it had been a three-decker, now leaping in the sunshine doing nothing at all. But she had moments now of much thinking, and had gained some of that self-control, that comes to those who have faced the realities of life.

Soon the camp was stirring, and she rose fromher box-bed. She saw a look in Robin’s face that had not been there yesterday, and her heart gave a great throb.

“Where are the childer?” screamed the old Granny, who was always at her crossest in the morning, spoiling the shining hours with her rasping old tongue.

“Where be the childer? Off with yer! off with yer, I tell ’ee; and if ’ee don’t fetch the water in double-quick time, it’s Granny Petulengro that ’ull know it, and makeyouknow it, ye lazy, loitering varmints, yer good-for-nothing brats! Now then get off wid ’ee, I tell ’ee; get off wid ’ee, ye brazen everlastin’ nuisance. I’ll come after ye, I will!” She stood and shook her fist, muttering angrily.

Robin and Mousie took up the pitcher and ran swiftly. They climbed over the little fence and bent their steps towards the brook, then hardly exchanging a word between them, they set the pitcher down, and crossing to the other bank, they sped up the rough hillside. How far off the hill looked—it seemed to recede before them. They ran and ran, till at last they had to slacken their pace, but now the mill seemed nearer. O, how thankful they were when they came up toit, and heard the clank and lumber of the great sails going round in the fresh wind.

They flung themselves against the door that was to shelter them; they battered in their eagerness. And then the door opened, and Jasper Ford appeared. He drew them in with kind broad hands, that seemed full of pity and protection, and Mousie fell sobbing against his shoulder. The mill seemed full of people, about six pairs of eyes were looking on, expressing various degrees of sympathy.

Mousie and Robin were given something to eat, but every footstep outside was a terror. Then Jasper told them what was about to happen, that Freedom and he together had planned their escape. There was to be no time lost in getting the stain off, the hour of their departure was close at hand. Only Jasper required one thing of them—implicit obedience; and they were to trust him through all. Even if it seemed sometimes long, and as if he’d forgotten them, they must still trust him, and wherever and however they found themselves, they were to wait patiently and still.

Of course both children said “Yes,” and Mousie hugged Jasper, and thought how good his mealycoat smelt, and said “yes” a hundred times more.

And then Jasper took out two sacks and tied the children up in them, and in half-an-hour’s time they were placed with about twenty other sacks in a long waggon, that came to the mill.

So once more they were upon the road driving. And Mousie and Robin spent the next hours learning to weave that garment of the soul called Patience, that hardly any children, and very few people, know anything about.

In the afternoon of that same day they reached Downham Market, and here Jasper was to deposit his empty sacks and return next day with them replenished, to Mousehold Mill. But in the meantime he must find a sure retreat for the lost pair, for it was thought Bill would come seeking them; but if once beyond a certain point, they might consider themselves safe.

Jasper’s first duty was to go to the Inn, where they kept post-chaises, and hire a messenger mounted on horseback, to take a note. He had money for this—the good people at Mousehold Mill had provided it when he told them the case. This mounted messenger was to ride straight to the town of Woodstock, taking withhim a small packet, neatly sewn in canvas to be safe. This parcel contained Mousie’s head kerchief, and one of Robin’s little shoes—two things that had been stored away by Freedom all this time. On a slip of paper were written the words:—

“That which was lost is found.Apply to Master Larkynge,The Wheatsheaf, Ely.”

“That which was lost is found.

Apply to Master Larkynge,

The Wheatsheaf, Ely.”

When the messenger had mounted his grey, and was well upon the road, Jasper had a difficult matter to settle. He had to decide the means to get them farther on their way towards Ely, for he himself had to return in the early morning to Mousehold Heath. And to do this he decided to hire a cart and drive them far on into the night, till he reached a turnpike cottage. Here an old hunchback lived to whom he had shown kindness. This turnpike cottage was on the public road, and the carriers’ carts passed it. He intended hiding the children with the hunchback, and commissioning him to put them into the carrier’s van on the morrow, with the message that they were to be left at Master Larkynge, till called for, at the “Wheatsheaf Inn.”

It was a lovely September night when Jasper drove the children from Downham Market in the hired gig. The moon rose large and full above them, but Mousie didn’t see it, for she was sound asleep at Jasper’s feet on a warm sheepskin.

Robin sat beside Jasper and counted the glow-worms till his eyelids began to droop.

And as they drove along the silver’d highway, the gorse bushes black against the grey Down, and the woods lying like great dark mantles thrown across the wold, Jasper sang. Surely a stanza of Freedom’s song, Robin thought. And the words of his song were these:—

“Full many a day, have I found my way,Where the long road winds round the hill.Where the wind blows free, on a Juniper lea,To the tune, and the clank of a mill.For the miller’s a man who must work while he can,With the rye, and the barley growing,While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn,To the fresh wind blowing.”

“Full many a day, have I found my way,

Where the long road winds round the hill.

Where the wind blows free, on a Juniper lea,

To the tune, and the clank of a mill.

For the miller’s a man who must work while he can,

With the rye, and the barley growing,

While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn,

To the fresh wind blowing.”

At last they arrived at the turnpike cottage. The steam from the heated horse rose in clouds upon the night air, and the cart moved to his flanks heaving.

Jasper roused Mousie, and the door opened to his knock. A little bent old man with a great hunch on his back appeared with a lantern, a lantern that served more to blind every one than to help them to see, as he held it up inquiringly into their faces, narrowing his own eyes, to make out what manner of folk these were. Then Jasper carried the children in, dazed and sleepy, to the tiny room. And soon they were sound asleep in a bed in a corner of the cottage, for there was no upstairs whatever.

Mousie woke just enough to feel happy all over, with the comfortable knowledge that Jasper had really come and taken them away. So thankful did she feel that she tried with drowsy nodding head, not to forget her prayers.

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,Bless this bed that I lie on.Four corners to my bed,Four angels at my head,One to watch, one to pray,And two to bear all fears away.”

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Bless this bed that I lie on.

Four corners to my bed,

Four angels at my head,

One to watch, one to pray,

And two to bear all fears away.”

And they blest it, for she slept profoundly. She dreamed she was playing with a white kid, on the lawn at Blenheim.

And it was daylight when she woke.

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